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I wonder what the tipping point was where the general attitude towards PG and his essays changed. It's tempting to say AI, but I feel it was more like AirBnB er

I wonder what the tipping point was where the general attitude towards PG and his essays changed. It's tempting to say AI, but I feel it was more like AirBnB era? When people saw how one of YC's golden goose affected the local communities, the rosy color on our glasses inevitably faded.

walt_grata 2mo ago
Once YC companies started having a negative impact on people and communities. Airbnb and gig worker stuff seems to be the start of it.
- leoc 2mo ago
  His reaction to the 2011 Dropbox password incident was an early concern, IIRC.
  - walt_grata 2mo ago
    Very much so in my recollection
ViktorRay 2mo ago
Are you sure the attitude changed generally or did it change more specifically here on Hacker News? Perhaps the kinds of people who use Hacker News changed. https://youtu.be/ZIaOBAjvc38 https://youtu.be/ZIaOBAjvc38 Go to the 2:00 mark of this interview. Sam Altman says “Paul Graham is the most important force in startups of the past few decades” and the whole auditorium starts cheering. So Paul Graham is akin to a god in some places.
- mzajc 2mo ago
  I would hazard a guess that the people attending a YC event (!) to watch Sam Altman (!) talk with Garry Tan (!) would regard Paul Graham well irrespective of how the rest of the world sees him.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
- leoc 2mo ago
  > Perhaps the kinds of people who use Hacker News changed. I don't think that a change in the composition of HN users is sufficient to explain it. To start with, a lot of the original user base which came over from main Reddit and /r/programming still seems to be active here. And if I had to hazard a guess I'd say that our attitude to pg has indeed shifted.
bobthepanda 2mo ago
I think people have now become extremely wary of VC, startup and Silicon Valley because at some point there was a boiling frog shift from helping people and enabling new things to viciously eating anyone not participating.
- mitxela 2mo ago
  "at some point the water shifted from cold to hot"
Cider9986 2mo ago
OpenAI Airbnb Stripe Coinbase DoorDash Scale AI Dropbox Reddit Instacart GitLab Kalshi Replit Twitch These are the companies advertised on ycombinator.com. The only one I like is GitLab which I'm neutral about. All other are companies I dislike.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- fakedang 2mo ago
  What's wrong with Coinbase? Sure they're in the crypto realm, but it's not like they're actively damaging the ecosystem. Coinbase has been far more reserved than Binance or the n number of crypto exchanges outside the US.
  - Cider9986 2mo ago
    KYC like all CEXs. Pretty much all those companies practice surveillance capitalism. Kraken is also KYC but at least they didn't delist Monero.
bambax 2mo ago
[flagged]
- phonon 2mo ago
  According the the University it was for "Ghent University is shocked by the death of Professor Arday....recent public statements made by a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University regarding this matter"[1] and as discussed on that page he was not fired (yet?) but was "imposed a disciplinary measure on a member of its research staff for a period of three months. A preliminary inquiry is also under way to determine if further disciplinary action is warranted." So perhaps you appear to the one "too lazy to research the facts"? [1]https://www.ugent.be/en/news-events/updates-case-postdoctoral-researcher https://www.ugent.be/en/news-events/updates-case-postdoctora...
- dififjfj37484 2mo ago
  If I remember correctly, Paul talked a lot about things that are ‘unsayable’ but his support for those going further than he was prepared to suggested at the things that he would to be able to say without losing status or power
  - bambax 2mo ago
    Yes, he wrote a whole essay about it, in which he says: > What can't we say? One way to find these ideas is simply to look at things people do say, and get in trouble for. (...) The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be believed. I suspect the statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be true. https://paulgraham.com/say.html https://paulgraham.com/say.html What are those statements that "might be true"? It's hard to come up with better candidates than Cofnas' theories. (As an aside, Graham likes to talk a lot about Galileo (in this essay and many others); he makes him a hero of truth. But Galileo didn't get into trouble because of his theories! But because of his attitude. He would ridicule the papacy, in writing, repeatedly. What you couldn't say wasn't that the earth moved, but that the Pope was a clown.)
    - aslksadsa 2mo ago
tim333 2mo ago
I'm not quite sure which change you are thinking off? This one seems quite well recieved.

walt_grata 2mo ago

Once YC companies started having a negative impact on people and communities. Airbnb and gig worker stuff seems to be the start of it.

leoc 2mo ago
His reaction to the 2011 Dropbox password incident was an early concern, IIRC.
- walt_grata 2mo ago
  Very much so in my recollection

ViktorRay 2mo ago

Are you sure the attitude changed generally or did it change more specifically here on Hacker News? Perhaps the kinds of people who use Hacker News changed. https://youtu.be/ZIaOBAjvc38 https://youtu.be/ZIaOBAjvc38 Go to the 2:00 mark of this interview. Sam Altman says “Paul Graham is the most important force in startups of the past few decades” and the whole auditorium starts cheering. So Paul Graham is akin to a god in some places.

mzajc 2mo ago
I would hazard a guess that the people attending a YC event (!) to watch Sam Altman (!) talk with Garry Tan (!) would regard Paul Graham well irrespective of how the rest of the world sees him.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
leoc 2mo ago
> Perhaps the kinds of people who use Hacker News changed. I don't think that a change in the composition of HN users is sufficient to explain it. To start with, a lot of the original user base which came over from main Reddit and /r/programming still seems to be active here. And if I had to hazard a guess I'd say that our attitude to pg has indeed shifted.

bobthepanda 2mo ago

I think people have now become extremely wary of VC, startup and Silicon Valley because at some point there was a boiling frog shift from helping people and enabling new things to viciously eating anyone not participating.

mitxela 2mo ago
"at some point the water shifted from cold to hot"

Cider9986 2mo ago

OpenAI Airbnb Stripe Coinbase DoorDash Scale AI Dropbox Reddit Instacart GitLab Kalshi Replit Twitch These are the companies advertised on ycombinator.com. The only one I like is GitLab which I'm neutral about. All other are companies I dislike.

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
fakedang 2mo ago
What's wrong with Coinbase? Sure they're in the crypto realm, but it's not like they're actively damaging the ecosystem. Coinbase has been far more reserved than Binance or the n number of crypto exchanges outside the US.
- Cider9986 2mo ago
  KYC like all CEXs. Pretty much all those companies practice surveillance capitalism. Kraken is also KYC but at least they didn't delist Monero.

bambax 2mo ago

[flagged]

phonon 2mo ago
According the the University it was for "Ghent University is shocked by the death of Professor Arday....recent public statements made by a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University regarding this matter"[1] and as discussed on that page he was not fired (yet?) but was "imposed a disciplinary measure on a member of its research staff for a period of three months. A preliminary inquiry is also under way to determine if further disciplinary action is warranted." So perhaps you appear to the one "too lazy to research the facts"? [1]https://www.ugent.be/en/news-events/updates-case-postdoctoral-researcher https://www.ugent.be/en/news-events/updates-case-postdoctora...
dififjfj37484 2mo ago
If I remember correctly, Paul talked a lot about things that are ‘unsayable’ but his support for those going further than he was prepared to suggested at the things that he would to be able to say without losing status or power
- bambax 2mo ago
  Yes, he wrote a whole essay about it, in which he says: > What can't we say? One way to find these ideas is simply to look at things people do say, and get in trouble for. (...) The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be believed. I suspect the statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be true. https://paulgraham.com/say.html https://paulgraham.com/say.html What are those statements that "might be true"? It's hard to come up with better candidates than Cofnas' theories. (As an aside, Graham likes to talk a lot about Galileo (in this essay and many others); he makes him a hero of truth. But Galileo didn't get into trouble because of his theories! But because of his attitude. He would ridicule the papacy, in writing, repeatedly. What you couldn't say wasn't that the earth moved, but that the Pope was a clown.)
  - aslksadsa 2mo ago

tim333 2mo ago

I'm not quite sure which change you are thinking off? This one seems quite well recieved.